Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

Guard D'Mitrik Trice is Wisconsin's top returning scorer, having averaged 11.6 points a game last season.(Photo: Getty Images)

Anonymous and ordinary.

That might be the best way to describe the current perception of the Wisconsin men’s basketball team preparing to take the court in 2019-20.

No UW player was listed among the top 10 preseason picks released Wednesday by the Big Ten during its media day in Rosemont, Illinois. That came two days after UW was projected to finish sixth in the league by a panel of 28 writers who cover the Big Ten.

The primary reason: UW, which finished fourth in the Big Ten with a 14-6 mark last season, must replace Ethan Happ, one of the more decorated players in program history.

“You don’t replace Ethan Happ,” UW coach Greg Gard told the Big Ten Network on Wednesday. “And it’s not the first time we’ve had really good players move on. The system and the nuts and bolts of it will remain the same but every team, kind of organically, finds their strengths.

“With Ethan it was playing through the post and through him a lot. This team is working on their identity. I like their versatility. I like the ability to stretch the floor. We have a lot of multi-dimensional players, which I think is going to bode well for us.

“The biggest thing I’m probably more concerned about – these guys can talk about what we’ve been working on in practice – is replacing that experience defensively of Ethan and Khalil Iverson.”

Fifth-year senior guard Brevin Pritzl told BTN it is up to the veterans to make clear the type of defense that is expected.

“We’ve all been through the wars,” he said. “It’s about bringing everybody – even the guys who haven’t been in the system as much – talking to them and making sure they understand what we’re trying to work for and how we do that.”

UW does return six of its top eight scorers, led by guards D’Mitrik Trice (11.6 ppg) and Brad Davison (10.5 ppg).

The Badgers have added freshman Tyler Wahl, a 6-foot-7 forward who is expected to play immediately, and redshirt junior Micah Potter, a 6-10 forward who played two seasons at Ohio State before transferring to UW last year. UW officials are waiting word on their appeal that Potter be declared eligible to play immediately rather than after the end of the first semester.

“He brings a physical toughness,” Gard told BTN. “He brings size to the front line. Our bigs have been known to be able to shoot the ball and stretch the floor. He brings that dimension as well. He has been terrific in our locker room. He has fit like he has been there for three or four years from a culture standpoint.”

Pritzl and Trice, who also participated in the media day, suggested forward Aleem Ford (3.1 ppg, 1.9 rpg) will be a more well-rounded player this season.

“He has been an outside shooting presence,” Trice told BTN, but he has definitely worked on his ball-handling and his strength, finally getting that confidence to be a more versatile player.”

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.